


Unusual Words

by purplekitte



Category: Horus Heresy - Various Authors, Warhammer 40.000
Genre: Alcohol, Cuddling & Snuggling, Dubious Consent, M/M, Magic Mindwhammies, Non-Explicit Sex, Nudity, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-28
Updated: 2015-01-04
Packaged: 2019-09-16 17:59:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 2,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16958814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/purplekitte/pseuds/purplekitte
Summary: A collection of ficlets based on unusual word prompts





	1. Capernoited - Magnus/Russ

**Capernoited**  - Slightly intoxicated or tipsy

‘It’s nice that you think so highly of the brewed beverages of your homeworld, Leman, but they are merely chemicals (which you could identify with a simple, modern chemical assay) and therefore nothing to a well-trained biomancer.’

Magnus had said as much, therefore any blurriness at the edge of Russ’ form had to be the shape of Russ’ soul itself. It would be absurd for anything to be wrong with his physical eyes, as unimportant as those were.

‘Do you know,’ Russ said, low and conspiratory, though the look in his eyes was never quite friendly, ‘what our father looks like drunk off His ass and fallen over on the floor?’

‘I can’t believe He didn’t simply… not want to dignify your first two “tests” with a true response.’ Magnus wondered if those words should have flowed better in some other order. No matter. ‘That story is unambiguous about you getting knocked off your feet when He showed His hand.’

‘You’re not Him.’

‘Are you trying to play hit-for-hit with me?’ He’d really rather not when barehanded brawling was Russ’ specialty and he’d have all sorts of ideas about what constituted ‘cheating’ if Magnus did anything but flail his fists around like a brute.

‘Well, it couldn’t be much more embarrassing for you than how shot-for-shot is going.’

‘I am not intoxicated in the least.’

‘Of course,’ Russ said, and of course responding to the insult in a tone would be ‘overreacting.’ Russ’ breath was warm in his ear, even though he was clearly too far away for that. ‘Another round then.’

He most certainly did not need Russ’ hand to guide his to the mug.


	2. Concilliabule - Russ/Konrad

**Concilliabule** \- A secret meeting of people who are hatching a plot

They think he can’t hear. Konrad hopes this is the case, or he’ll have to consider the possibility they don’t care.

‘Do you think he’ll eat as much as the king does and we should just double the usual? He doesn’t seem like the type.’

‘Exactly. He needs fattening up. Don’t skimp on the food and Leman will put an arm over his shoulder and make him eat it until it’s gone.’

‘That sounds like him. Well, with that in mind, we should have the kitchens send up mammoth instead of fish.’

‘Oh right, m’lord said that if he ate as much as he needed to fill his stomach in the form of mammoth blubber he’d be the size of a walrus in no time, but when you’ve got someone whose bones you can see through their skin…’

‘I wonder if he gets cold.’

‘That’s why he’s practically glued to Leman even under all the furs of his bed.’

‘What, and you don’t sleep that way when the king drags you into the puppy-pile in his den?’

‘Who doesn’t, I admit. Freyja bless, they’re cute.’

‘They really are.’

Konrad decides to direct his annoyance at Russ rather than at the humans who had spent hours scouring years of congealed blood from his armour and concluded his most notable trait was his bony elbows rather than his being the terror in the night. Russ, as if hearing his thoughts and not caring, snores sprawled across his chest and tightens the arm flung over his shoulder to curl around to his back. He wishes those fingers were less warm against his shoulder blade.


	3. Agelast - Luther/Lion

**Agelast** \- A person who never laughs

‘It was… just a joke, Lion. You’ve really got to get a better feel for these things.’

‘I’ve figured out to assume as much when someone says something extremely odd, but I still fail to find it humorous.’

‘And what do you find humorous?’

Lion looked thoughtful, unaware of the hint of sourness in Luther’s tone. ‘I’m not sure. I don’t know that I’ve ever felt the desired effect. Should I practice repeating lines until I have some idea what elements go into getting a positive response?’

 ‘Don’t repeat that joke.’

 ‘Why not?’

‘It’s… rude.’

‘I was under the impression sexual insinuations were a common element of humour.’

‘There are jokes appropriate under some circumstances when people who know each other well tease in private that would be insulting to a man’s honour. You found the idea shocking, didn’t you? I prefer it when you only challenge people to duels on purpose, and it hardly befits your dignity to be crude about it.’

‘Alright. I’ll refrain from suggesting I want to have sex with someone for humorous purposes.’

‘Good,’ Luther said, and cursed himself for a coward.


	4. Mamihlapinatapei, Wanweird - Russ/Magnus

**Mamihlapinatapei** \- The look between two people in which each loves the other but is too afraid to make the first move

 **Wanweird**  \- An unhappy fate

He could have thrown an arm over his brother’s shoulders, accepted that he had to look up just a little (or at least drag his brother down), but he didn’t. Russ didn’t run his tongue over the curve of his ear like he sometimes thought off, just to see what Magnus would do, how startled or out of sorts he would be. He didn’t trail his lips to meet his brother’s and demand the Crimson King’s full attention be on hot, physical touch. Russ fights him as an enemy, never draws him close and tells him they can enjoy this, enjoy each other.

Magnus doesn’t say I want to understand you. He argues; he doesn’t listen. He doesn’t give himself to the dangers of the hurricane that is Russ’ mind in the hope of finding its eye. He could have admitted Russ knew things worth knowing that he did not yet. He could have kept in mind all the ways they were the same, but didn’t. He could have spoken to Russ in words he would understand, and explained the semantics later. He didn’t treat Russ as an equal, didn’t use that to demand to be treated as such by his brother in turn. He never conversed with Russ for long hours over common interests, never kept up long astropathic (or mind-to-mind, not needing help to reach across space) discussions even when far apart, never teased without malice or listened without defensiveness. He never melded his ocean of ideas with Russ’ storm of consciousness as Russ curled up warm and furry in his lap.

To make a concession was to show weakness and invite mockery. So they did not.


	5. Apodyopis - Russ/Bjorn

**Apodyopis** **-** The act of mentally undressing someone

The cold is a way of life on Fenris, and it occurs to Bjorn on a sunny beach on a world where they’d been asked to hunt sea-dragons that he’s never seen his primarch entirely bare. That would be strange, however antiquated an issue it might be for one of Astartes enhancements. While the hunt is going well, and he wouldn’t argue against doing something fun for once rather than the grimmer of their duties, this ocean world has turned out to be disconcertingly unlike Fenris in its particulars, namely the tropical climate and unclothed natives.

Russ wears his furs here, as unconcerned as he probably would have been had he been naked on Asaheim. Bjorn would have liked them to be stuck to his form with sweat (he would have liked to lick it off, more like), but he will have to do with imaging the whole from the bits and pieces given to him.

The knobs at the back of his neck that show when he has his hair swept up as he brushes it. The curling red hair of his chest that shows between the lower cut of his undertunics and his beard, and Bjorn can feel the texture of even when he is still touching outside his shirt. The width of his shoulders that always seemed so much more elegant and proportional in a primarch than an Astartes, and the knots of muscle making up the line of them and descending down his back. The solid barrel of his chest hardly slimming below his ceramite rib-plate. The curve of his ass when he wrestles with a wolf or a Wolf. His callused and chapped feet with too-hard nails that always hang outside the blankets when he sleeps. How the skin of his inner thigh grows softer above the knee, even though the muscles below it are just as corded, and the growing tension in the tendons leading up to his hips. The girth of his cock as it presses hard and insistent against Bjorn’s leg, how hot it burns when he finally gets his hand under layers of furs to touch flesh.

Russ grins at him like he can smell what he’s thinking across the beach and shrugs his shoulders in the most full-body, teasing of ways. Bjorn’s eyes light up in answering mirth and heat, and he resolves to ask for his lord’s nakedness before they leave, to show him everything as he takes him in the bright two suns and the warm water. They are Wolves, after all. There are no secrets between them.


	6. Duende - Emperor/Russ

**Duende** \- Unusual power to attract or charm

Leman keeps expecting to see something out of the corner of his eye when nothing is there, or perhaps feels déjà vu, of what he cannot remember. Maybe it has to do with the _knowing_ he feels towards the stranger.

He smiles, despite himself. He knows curiosity and takes joy from his adopted human pack, but he has never wanted approval so much or been unsure of getting it. He can’t not keep the stranger–the Emperor of Mankind–in the corner of his eye, even knowing he should be seeing to his people and his head doesn’t like it. He wants to be noticed in turn, paid attention to.

The old man’s smile is not friendly, as he can evaluate these human showings of teeth. Leman whines in the back of his throat, like a puppy. He wants those hands tugging in his red hair. He wants to lean into them. Is he a blushing lad or maiden with a first crush now?

‘I do not want a beast. I did not pour this power into you for you to squander it.’

‘What do you want from me?’ His tongue feels thick, wrapping it around words a chore. He wants to use it to lick the trails of the lines wisdom had wrought into the other’s face. He wants to be on his knees for him, if that’s the submission he wants.

His jarl pulls him in and Leman can’t breathe for the wanting, can’t even recognise the strangeness anymore for the desire to press the length of his body against the other’s as a wave longs to break against the shore. The Emperor moves a hand over his hair, purposeful rather than affectionate. A shape. A rune.

‘A charm I know, that I can turn the heart and mind of any to grant my desires.’ It doesn’t help in the least knowing he is bewitched, because even when he might be angered he can’t help but want to be desired, loved, in return with all his soul. ‘I know eighteen charms. You must grow wise in the ways of humans and you must learn them all. I am not an easy teacher and I will not set you to easy quests.’

‘I will,’ the Wolf King said, even should he be asked to be a wolf no longer. He was not such a fool to not see why the All-father had sought to tame him with this longing first, until his thrall was worth being met on his own terms. He knew now the wyrd that had always been his, as surely as the VI inscribed upon him: sorcerer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is a very vague au, where russ was supposed to be the really magicy one, instead of (in addition to?) magnus, look I just want the emps to be odin some days, the con man american gods version


	7. Lygerastia - Russ/Konrad

**Lygerastia** \- The condition of one who is only amorous when the lights are out

Curze will only fuck him in the dark. Russ doesn’t mind, not least of which because whatever advantage his brother believes it gains him is largely imagined against a man who could smell colour from an island away just from being able to tell dyes apart.  When they’re pressed together, there was hardly an inch of him Russ couldn’t feel or hadn’t mapped with his wandering hands. But he understands concepts of power and hierarchy very keenly, so he accepts that all the candles are going to be snuffed out before Curze is upon him.

Curze bites and scratches and _tears_ at him and Russ accepts that. Not because he’s made for surrender, but because he’s made for violence and blood too. He is not tame and he is not nice.

Russ lets Curze play his games in the darkness and knows he craves fear as much as he despises it, which Russ can never give him. He is never anything but totally sure of his own power and that he could stop their encounters in an instant. Grasp Curze’s wrists and hold them still in an iron grip so he can’t gouge claws into his cheeks. Wrap his legs around his brother’s and flip them over to show Curze what a real wrestler’s full-body pin feels like. Hold him down and make him gasp in helpless pleasure.

He waits. Curze trusts him to not let him go too far. That is what exists between them. Russ has a wolf’s patience.

He doesn’t quite enjoy when they roll around and bite and fuck; he’s too distant, too watchful. It’s the difference between something he does and something he is, and when he lets the calm of the centre of the storm out, the facade of personality and emotions he likes to play with falls away in favour of the latter.

He does like what happens later, after he’s said ‘No’ and made it so, and Curze has tired himself out against his relentless force. He likes the soreness of his healing body, that his brother can really hurt him. He likes how Curze trembles with overstimulation at his touch, but doesn’t fight as Russ pulls him into his arms and holds him gently this time. He can feel his chest expand and contract in his grip, move with it to not break his grip, the bony brittleness of his brother under gene-enhanced muscle and sinew.

He’s gone by the time the morning lamps are lit and won’t let Russ kiss him in day, but Russ is, always, patient.


End file.
